Mayor Rahm Emanuel has paid back the city for more than $14,000 in travel expenses after a Tribune story found he spent taxpayer money on trips in which he tapped well-heeled donors for campaign contributions.

The reimbursements came as Emanuel put in place a new travel policy for the mayor's office to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not used for "campaign-related business." The new guidelines, however, do not spell out what Emanuel considers campaign business. That gives him latitude to determine what travel costs he pays for and which ones taxpayers pick up, without having to disclose what he did on the trips.

The money Emanuel paid back covered expenses tied to seven trips during which City Hall determined he conducted political work on the city's dime — plus an $1,800-per-night hotel room he stayed in during President Barack Obama's second inauguration.

But Emanuel's repayment did not include costs associated with at least three taxpayer-funded trips during which the mayor met with current and future campaign donors, and six trips where records show he conducted little or no city business.

Emanuel spokeswoman Kelley Quinn said the mayor has directed staff to develop a new written policy to "govern any official trips where (campaign) fundraising events were also scheduled."

"This policy goes beyond current law," Quinn said, "and out of abundance of caution, was also applied retroactively to any trips that met the criteria."

The result: Emanuel had his banker cut two checks from his personal account totaling $14,623.78.

Kent Redfield, a campaign finance expert, criticized Emanuel's use of taxpayer dollars on trips that mixed politics with city business but applauded the mayor's decision to implement a new policy, though he said it could be better defined and cover more political expenses.

Tribune Graphics

Tribune Graphics

"This mostly seems like an appropriate response," said Redfield, a campaign finance researcher and professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield. "There is more transparency, and now you've got a policy in place that the public can evaluate and determine whether these expenses are being handled in a reasonable way."

A new policy

In April the Tribune reported that Emanuel took at least 56 trips during his first 21/2 years in office, with City Hall spending $325,000 on travel for Emanuel and his staff. The Emanuel administration later disclosed that the city spent an additional $30,000 on private car service for the trips.

On more than half those trips, Emanuel did not disclose his travel to the public, city records showed. The Tribune pieced together details of the mayor's travel from thousands of pages of campaign finance reports, official calendars, public schedules and city expense records obtained through open records requests.

During at least 15 of his out-of-town trips, Emanuel either held campaign fundraisers and meetings with political donors or engaged in events that included little or no city business, the Tribune found.

After the story was published, the administration developed a travel policy for the mayor's office. It states that on trips in which city business is mixed with campaign work, "costs shall be allocated according to the percentage of the trip spent on each type of business."

For the trips the mayor reimbursed, staff reviewed his schedule to calculate how much time the mayor spent on political business to determine how much should be paid back, plus 5 percent interest compounded monthly, Quinn said.

On July 9, Emanuel issued two checks to the city. The first, for $8,811, covered the mayor's four-night stay at the Washington, D.C., Park Hyatt during Obama's January 2013 inauguration, plus interest. The Emanuel administration said in April that the mayor would pay back the city for those costs.

The second check, for $5,812.78, included payments for seven trips in which the administration concluded that the city had paid for "campaign-related business."

One of those trips was a September 2013 visit to Washington, D.C., where Emanuel was supposed to meet with three Obama Cabinet members and fly to New Jersey to campaign for then-U.S. Senate candidate Cory Booker. Emanuel, who also raised campaign money while in D.C., cut the trip short after 13 people were shot in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

The administration told the Tribune in April that the mayor's campaign fund would pay back $1,440 because he conducted no city business on the trip. Instead, the mayor decided to pay back $883. Quinn said the payment was not for the full amount because the mayor's new travel policy calls for the city to pay for his security detail's expenses on trips that include city and campaign business. Quinn said the mayor had planned to conduct city business and that justified the taxpayer expense.

The policy states that if a trip is only political, the mayor's campaign is responsible for the security costs.

"Regardless of what the mayor is doing, he is the mayor of Chicago and is entitled to security detail," Quinn said. "Since the mayor is always traveling as the mayor of Chicago, the policy goes above and beyond what is necessary."

Paying back taxpayers

The amount of time Emanuel spent on politics during the seven trips he reimbursed the city for ranged from 19 percent on an October 2012 New York trip to 100 percent on the D.C. trip he ended early, the administration said.

The trip the mayor reimbursed the city the most for was a May 2012 visit to San Francisco — $1,955 for a trip that the administration calculated he spent 75 percent of the time doing campaign business. More than half the total, $1,172, paid for a private car service for two days.

The mayor had only one event on that trip that clearly could be deemed city business — an Aspen Institute education summit, records show. Much of the trip included three undisclosed meetings, with vague descriptions such as "private residence," according to the mayor's calendar.

Emanuel also attended a Women of Silicon Valley dinner at a private residence in Atherton, Calif., part of a series of monthly meetings that Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg hosted at her home. The events aimed to introduce a mix of women to, as Vogue magazine put it, "notable speakers pulled from Sandberg's Rolodex." Sandberg was an early supporter of Emanuel's mayoral campaign, contributing $30,300, records show.

The trip with the second-highest reimbursement tab, at $1,325, was for an April 2012 New York visit that the Tribune raised questions about earlier this year.

On that trip, Emanuel was scheduled to attend a JPMorgan board summit and hold private meetings with three corporate executives, including Mark Gallogly, an investment executive who serves on Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board and gave $80,300 to Emanuel's campaign. The mayor also raised $50,000 from people connected to Paul Britton, the founder of Capstone Investment Advisors, Emanuel's campaign previously confirmed.

The mayor's office determined that Emanuel spent 50 percent of that trip on campaign business. But the mayor did not reimburse the city for a $3,015 trip to New York a month earlier, when Emanuel also attended an event hosted by Britton. Quinn said the mayor "was on official business."

Emanuel also reimbursed the city for another four trips — three to New York and one to Boston — totaling $1,647.

Even when Emanuel did reimburse the city, his official calendar did not make it clear that he was holding campaign events. In many cases, the calendars used cryptic labels such as "noncity lunch Four Seasons Restaurant" or "noncity meeting Trump Towers."

In most cases, the Tribune was able to determine that fundraising took place only because campaign finance records released shortly after the trips showed thousands of dollars flowing to the mayor's political fund from scores of people in the cities Emanuel had just visited.

Redfield, the campaign finance expert, said that for Emanuel's new travel policy to be truly effective, his calendars should include enough detail so it's clear what type of events he is taking part in. The calendars also should be made available to the public in a timely manner, he said, so it can be determined whether his policy is being implemented properly.

Currently the Emanuel administration provides copies of the calendars months later, and only in response to an open records request.

Trips with no payback

Emanuel opted not to reimburse the city for nine trips in which records show he either met with campaign donors or conducted little to no city business. The administration has said the mayor was traveling in his official capacity during those trips. As a result, he was not required to reimburse the city under the new travel policy.

Six of the nine trips involved little or no city business, including four to Washington, D.C., for black-tie dinners known for inside-the-Beltway schmoozing. Emanuel's office has responded by saying that anytime the mayor is in D.C., he's conducting official city business.

On another trip, Emanuel traveled to Little Rock, Ark., to give a speech to the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas. City Hall has said that taxpayers paid for that travel because the mayor's onetime boss, former President Bill Clinton, invited Emanuel to speak "in his official capacity."

Emanuel's new travel policy does not address events in which it appears he is not conducting city business. As long as an event on Emanuel's trip is not "campaign-related," the policy calls for taxpayers to pick up the tab.

Redfield said the mayor's policy should be adjusted so trips with no city business are paid for by Emanuel's campaign.

"If you're going to have a policy that aims to be responsive to these type of concerns, and in terms of building public confidence, you should always err on the side of caution in situations like that," he said. "Otherwise, it gets you into this gray area."

Emanuel's policy states that "for a trip that is entirely campaign-related, the total cost for the trip shall be a campaign expense." The mayor, however, chose to not reimburse the city for part of a political trip in September 2012. That's when Emanuel traveled to Charlotte, N.C., for the Democratic National Convention, and his administration charged taxpayers $1,450 for two rental cars checked out by the mayor's security detail.

Asked why the mayor had decided not to reimburse the city, given the new travel policy, Emanuel spokesman Adam Collins said in an email that the administration is "reviewing and confirming that security detail expense and will reimburse anything that is consistent with the new policy." The mayor also spent money from his campaign fund on the trip.

On at least three other trips, Emanuel met with people who either were campaign donors or would soon give him a donation, but he chose not to reimburse the city for the travel costs. Quinn said the mayor was on official city business during those trips.

City Hall's new travel policy does not define what constitutes "campaign-related business," however, so it's unclear which of the mayor's events require reimbursement. Asked if the policy covered campaign fundraisers, political meetings and meetings with campaign donors, Collins would not specify. "Anything that is expressly political in nature," Collins wrote in an email.

One of those taxpayer-funded trips in which Emanuel met with campaign donors was an October 2013 New York trip that the mayor did not publicly disclose.

Records show Emanuel flew there to have coffee with then-New York Democratic mayoral nominee Bill de Blasio, participate in a Bloomberg News round table and conduct two other business meetings. That was followed by a scheduled three-hour retreat with the Hamilton Project, a left-leaning economic policy think tank, according to the mayor's calendar.

About a month later, Emanuel's campaign reported receiving $24,900 in five contributions made by the Hamilton Project's board members or their spouses. All told, 11 people on the board or their spouses have contributed more than $270,000 to Emanuel's campaign.

Asked to explain why the mayor chose not to reimburse the city for a portion of the trip when he met with people who had, or soon would, donate to his campaign, Quinn replied: "The mayor was on official city business."